Thoughts from David Styles on life extension, Cryonics, and H+ / Transhumanism in the UK and internationally, and the pursuit of immortality and the Posthuman condition in general. Statements and views in this weblog are my own, and do not necessarily represent the views of EUCRIO, Cryonics UK, CI, Alcor, LEF, ImmInst, SENS, or any other organisation with which I may (or may not) be associated.

Saturday, 30 October 2010

The 2011 Teens & Twenties focus group for young cryonicists was originally scheduled to be a weekend in February, but the date has now been changed to Thursday evening, May 19 and all day Friday, May 20. The new dates will allow those attending the Teens & Twenties event to also attend a Suspended Animation, Inc. confe...rence being held on the weekend of May 20 to May 22. Forty scholarships to pay US airfare, lodging, and meals will be available to young cryonicists who have funding and contracts in place for cryopreservation with a cryonics organization. The scholarships cover all costs, not only of the Teens & Twenties event, but of the Suspended Animation conference. Young cryonicists not living in the United States are also welcome to apply, but may be required to pay some of the airfare above what airfare might be from a destination in the USA. First preference is being given to qualified young cryonicists who did not attend the 2010 event. Application forms can be requested from Kathy Marshall kmarshall@lifeextension.com (954) 202-7702

I went to this last year (and will go to it this year again). Worthwhile especially for those who do not already know everyone in cryonics.

Thursday, 28 October 2010

I consider that one's birthday should be the highest of holidays of a life-loving, epicurean, atheist.

I enjoyed taking the day off work, and spent the day enjoying time with my wife instead.

I had the pleasure of receiving some great gifts, including some that are still giving presently, such as an 18 years old Glenfiddich (Glenfiddich itself being by favourite whisky, but the 18 years is not so common as the 12 or 15), and vodka from Chase distillery (award-winning "world's best vodka" - seriously good).

Thanks to all who sent birthday well-wishes, I was overwhelmed somewhat with the several hundred of those that came my way, and yet I still very much appreciated each individual note.

Saturday, 23 October 2010

Standby, stabilisation, and transport are all very important parts of human cryopreservation. The more time that elapses between cardiac arrest and cryopreservation, the more damage will occur.

Hence the importance of standby – having a team of trained personnel on hand at the patient’s bedside to begin the stabilisation process as quickly as possible. An average standby, statistically, lasts for around ten days. Three days is considered a very short standby, and twenty days is considered very long. The period during which standby is being performed can also be used for ensuring that any bureaucratic issues are foreseen and circumvented, that all paperwork is in place for the patient, before deanimation and subsequent stabilisation occur.

Stabilisation in this context refers to the following: continuation of cardiac support, insertion of medications appropriate to cryopreservation; this includes anti-coagulants, blood-thinners, vasoconstrictors, volume-increasing agents, and pH buffers, amongst others; such is followed by the replacing of the patient’s blood with a medical cryoprotectant, such that the patient may be vitrified rather than frozen, in that as little as possible freezing should be allowed to occur, even with the very low temperatures involved; firstly at dry ice temperatures, and later at liquid nitrogen temperatures. Without these arrangements, cellular degradation will have been more advanced than with them. Also, upon cooling down to very low temperatures, freezing damage is likely to occur. This causes considerable harm to the patient, deemed to be greater than any harm caused even by potentially toxic cryoprotectants. It is noted that the toxicity of these cryoprotectants can be regulated, and is also lowered at lower temperatures.

Transport is the third main element in this process, and is also an issue of critical importance. With good organisation, prior planning, and secure arrangements, a patient can be delivered at dry ice temperatures to their long term care facility within a couple of days. A period of a couple of days for total transport time is quite acceptable, and about the same time as it often takes to get a patient from one part of America to another, if they are passing state borders. Without good preparations for transport, it will be very difficult for a patient to get safely to their destination, and often unacceptable delays are incurred ranging up to weeks.

In the European Union, currently there have been little to no formal arrangements for any of this to occur. In the UK, capabilities have ranged from poor to fair over the years depending on personnel, and outside of the UK, few countries have made even that much progress. Most local cryonics support groups have been able to render only bureaucratic assistance to their members, hiring and instructing funeral directors to arrange shipping of the patient. Even in the UK, assistance has only ever been based on a voluntary mutual-assistance arrangement, and as such has never been guaranteed.

A need is evident, therefore, for a professional full-time cryonics standby, stabilisation, and transport service, throughout the European Union. This must give Europeans the care that they need prior to arrival at the long-term storage facility of their choice, and to ensure that they arrive there in the best possible condition.

To this end, an organisational solution has now been implemented. This development has rendered it such that European cryonicists may avail themselves of such a service, and thus enjoy a greatly enhanced chance of optimal cryopreservation, with what can reasonably be assumed to be better chance of earlier, safer, restoration to viability.

On this occasion, I didn't travel out to Milano as originally intended, as my wife seemed to be going into early labour (she then didn't, but it seemed likely enough that birth was imminent that I was disinclined to travel more than necessary), so I gave my talk remotely, instead.

As is commonly the case, video was made - alas, the internet connection of the person making the video was not sufficient that it was able to load my later slides.

Monday, 11 October 2010

The Immortality Institute International Conference 2010 was a fast-paced information-packed weekend with many high-profile speakers from all over, with the vast majority of speakers and attendees being scientists with some focus on immortality.

Interestingly, as the Immortality Institute has periodically (about every six months since its inception in 2002, as new members bring it up, and they have a very democratic system) considered changing its name to something that doesn't involve the word "Immortality" as they consider it sounds to scientifically implausible, Dr. Michael Rose (one of the speakers) fielded a question on this topic (in other words, his opinion was asked, as he seems to use the word "immortality" quite comfortably and he is a very respected hard scientist).

His answer? An extract, after his mentioning of the fact that there are technically biologically immortal humans already alive today (that is, anyone over the age of 95), upon being asked about the scientific use of the word "immortality":

"To me the scientific mention of immortality is a completely legitimate one because you can see biologically immortal organisms; if you go to the seaside you can see sea anemones, or you can go to the Mojave desert in California; saying that that's somehow not something we're allowed to discuss reminds me of the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church, the Inquisition, persecuting Galileo, who presented evidence for Copernicus's heliocentric theory of the solar system."

Tuesday, 5 October 2010

I sent out this email today (should you want the documents mentioned in the email, then please by all means find me at david@eucrio.eu and I will be happy to send you copies):

Dear all,

I'd like to draw your attention to the official launch of EUCRIO, which is the first company to offer professional cryonics standby, stabilisation, and transport services to the European demographic.

EUCRIO offers these services to those who already have personal cryopreservation arrangements with any of the three main cryonics long term care providers (Alcor, CI, KrioRus), but in the case of someone who has no such arrangements, we would be happy to assist them in making such, at no charge and with no obligation being placed upon that person.

You might want to know about EUCRIO's capabilities; as such I direct you to our website, information from which is also included in an attached PDF document.

Equally, you might want to know about EUCRIO's costs, which are comparable to those of Suspended Animation Inc (with whom we are not in competition, and in fact from whom we have been pleased to receive advice and assistance over the course of the past year that we have been preparing this organisation). To this end, regarding costs, there is also attached information.

While we are now officially launched, and will already take on members, we commence full operations on November the 1st. As we are taking on members already, I have included membership application forms with this email too, for those who wish to proceed to the next step already.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me, and I'll be very happy to talk with you.

Warm regards,

Eternally,

David Styles

General Manager,EUCRIO

www.eucrio.eu

(website already available in many European languages - the rest will be there very soon)

Monday, 4 October 2010

I was pleased to speak at this German conference on applied biostasis.

My presentation was focussed on unveiling EUCRIO, a new development for cryonics standby, stabilisation, and transport, throughout the European Union.

As such, my talk concerned logistics, though I touched on science. Mostly, I left the science for the scientists, of whom there were plenty in the room.

Feedback included:

How can you charge so much?How can you charge so little?Too much marketing information!Not enough marketing information!

Sometimes it can be fun to try to integrate everybody's wishes into a presentation, in such a fashion.

However, I was pleased to field questions both immediately after my presentation, and in an ongoing fashion through the rest of my time in Goslar (the location of the symposium). I was also interviewed by an Italian TV crew, while there.

By doing these talks all over the place, I've been building up something of a FAQ in addition to the FAQ on the EUCRIO website.

It is my intention to make a series of YouTube videos (and, thus, also blog posts), addressing these.

It was good also to see Cryonics Institute President Ben Best's talks, "Cryonics: Introduction" and "Cryonics: Technical Challenges", which are now available to watch:

Friday, 1 October 2010

EUCRIO is the company providing cryonics emergency standby, stabilisation, and transport services, across the European Union.

Many Europeans have noticed that they have not enjoyed the same benefits as Americans when it comes to cryonics services, and thus have worried that they will not get the medical help that they need when they most need it, or get where they need to be when they most need to be there - or at all.

We have changed that now.

Our professionally trained teams will attend a call to "stand by" a terminally diagnosed patient's bedside, secure a pronouncement of legal death as soon as such is possible, perform initial cool-down while giving medications and continuing cardiac support throughout to avoid blood clots and circulate the medications properly; we will then provide a vitrification service to the patient, so that wherever possible, freezing damage will not occur. Finally, we cool down the patient to dry ice temperatures, and send them safely on their way to whichever of the three main cryonics storage service providers they have chosen, for the final cool-down to liquid nitrogen temperatures and long-term care.

If you are the kind of person who has had the foresight to make arrangements for personal cryonics services, then you are the rare kind of person who thinks and plans ahead, and invests in your own future.

Before EUCRIO, cases came to our attention wherein the patient had been waiting for a while on dry ice before any assistance came to them. Invariably such patients had no arrangements for standby, stabilisation, or transport, and relied on friends and relatives, to make necessary arrangements at the last minute, which invariably took them longer than expected. These cryonicists suffered far from perfect cryopreservations; often a "straight freeze" with no other preparations, for example, since that was all that could be done by the time help was found.

This is not what we want for you, and we're sure it's not what you want for yourself or your loved ones either.

To that end, we present EUCRIO - European Union Cryonics Rapid Intervention Organisation - and offer professionally trained staff, state-of-the-art medical equipment, specialised vitrification solutions, strong infrastructure and organisation, and in short everything needed to make your transition from terminal illness to long-term cryonics care as safe and secure as possible.